Faced with poor adoption of Windows 8, and no clear sign that matters will improve any time soon, Microsoft is thinking about releasing a free or low-cost version of Windows 8.1 called “Windows 8.1 with Bing.” The theory is that, by providing a free (or perhaps low-cost) version of Windows 8.1, users of Windows XP, Vista, and 7, will finally be convinced to upgrade. Microsoft hopes to offset the massive loss of income by pushing more users towards services like Bing, OneDrive, and Office. This follows news from MWC 2014 that Microsoft is also considering a similar move for Windows Phone. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Microsoft wants you to use two-step verification, so it’s adding more features to make that more useful and appealing. It’s easier to see what’s happening with your account and where it’s been accessed from.

Perhaps the company’s most important innovation since its co-founder Bram Cohen released the BitTorrent protocol in 2001, BitTorrent Sync is now available to download. Sync is a free tool that synchronizes files across all of your devices, and also allows you to share those files with friends and family (a la Dropbox). Most importantly, though, Sync is based on the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol, so your files move directly from one device to another, never passing through a midpoint.

Steve Ballmer has unveiled his comprehensive reorganization of Microsoft by division, and it’s a far cry from what’s come before. The shift is meant to eliminate the toxic in-fighting that’s consumed much of the company’s resources over the past 10 years.

A week ago, Microsoft released Windows 8.1 Preview, an upgrade to Windows 8 that makes the new operating system a lot more usable for Desktop users, and users who prefer to use a mouse and keyboard. I’ve now been running the Preview for a week on a dual-monitor mouse-and-keyboard setup, and except for a couple of small bugs it’s a surprisingly large improvement over Windows 8.1.

Yesterday, Microsoft released the preview version of Windows 8.1. I’ve now been using it for almost 24 hours on my main desktop PC with two monitors (neither of them touchscreens), and I can safely say that Windows 8.1 drastically improves the experience for mouse-and-keyboard users, and users who do most of their work on the Desktop. SkyDrive integration is awesome, the Start button — despite the lack of Start menu — is surprisingly functional, and improved split-screening means Desktop users can now actually use Metro apps without being forced into full-screen mode.

With the complete hardware, services, and pricing unveiled for the Xbox One at E3, we now have the totality of Microsoft’s “next-generation” consumer-oriented lineup: Windows 8 on the desktop, laptop, and tablet, Windows Phone 8 on the smartphone, and Xbox One in the living room. On paper, this trifecta, seamlessly connected via Microsoft Account, SkyDrive, and Xbox Live, is almost perfect. In reality, though, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Where did it all go wrong for Microsoft?

At long last, and probably in response to the growing number of leaks, Microsoft has published an official “first look” of Windows 8.1 (Blue). As expected, the Start button is making a return (but the Start menu isn’t), you can boot straight to the desktop, you can now view multiple Metro apps side-by-side, and the Metro control panel (PC Settings) has been beefed up to contain lots of important settings, such as screen resolution and power options.